Changes in immigration policy gradual but vast

By Stewart M. Powell

Updated 11:39 pm, Sunday, August 19, 2012

WASHINGTON — Republicans call the changes “amnesty.” Democrats dub them “reforms.” And immigration advocates see them as “a beginning.”

Behind the labels is the reality that the Obama administration has gradually overhauled immigration enforcement over the last three years, with nearly two dozen administrative changes that have lightened the day-to-day burden on many of the law-abiding immigrants who initially entered the United States illegally.

From targeting business owners instead of employees during worksite raids three months after taking office, to offering temporary legal residence to as many as 1.8 million children of undocumented immigrants last week, the administration has repeatedly exercised “prosecutorial discretion” to enact step-by-step changes without congressional approval or changes in federal law.

Critics fault the administration for the actions and the way they are being carried out.

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Permitting the children of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country and obtain work permits reflects the Democratic administration's “determination to carry out a massive amnesty for illegal aliens through illegal and unilateral action,” complains Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that backs legal immigration.

The administrative changes at the federal level contrast sharply with recent attempts by states such as Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah to crack down on undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down aspects of Arizona's aggressive law that required state and local law enforcement to question people about their immigration status during routine police stops.

The cumulative changes by the administration reflect an unprecedented effort to transform immigration enforcement into a system “that focuses on public safety, border security and the integrity of the immigration system,” says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

The administration will continue to “enforce and administer our immigration laws in a cohesive way that is smart, effective and that maximizes the resources that Congress has given us to do this important job,” adds Napolitano, a former governor, attorney general and federal prosecutor in the border state of Arizona.

The targeted internal enforcement is taking place amid a major buildup of law enforcement along the southwestern border, with 18,500 of the nation's 21,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents now operating along the 1,969-mile boundary with Mexico.

“It makes sense to use limited resources in an efficient and intelligent way,” says Geoffrey Hoffman, a professor at the University of Houston's law school who supervises the clinic handling immigration cases. “Obama has shown that he is not afraid to take bold action on this issue.”

“Obviously, presidents attempt to implement their policies by executive order when a legislative roadblock exists.” says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

The last time a president made such sweeping unilateral changes to immigration enforcement may have been in the 1950s, when Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal law enforcement agents to deport illegal immigrants, most of them from Mexico, amid concerns over a surge in border crossings and farmers' exploitation of undocumented workers.

Door-to-door roundups in Mexican-American neighborhoods in Texas, Arizona and California as part of “Operation Wetback” led to the arrest and deportation of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants. The effort resulted in a a broader exodus of hundreds of thousands of others who feared being caught.

That crackdown almost certainly contributed to Eisenhower's landslide re-election in 1956, in which he carried 43 states, including the four states bordering Mexico.

Today, experts say Obama's carefully orchestrated overhaul of immigration enforcement could help expand his support among Hispanic voters beyond 70 percent in the race against presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, a hardliner on immigration enforcement.

A sizeable edge among Latino voters could help Obama carry too-close-to-call battleground states such as New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, Colorado and even Virginia.

Revising immigration enforcement is “a very politically astute move,” says Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston. “By using the administrative tools at his disposal to provide hope and at least a temporary fix for many undocumented immigrants, President Obama is underscoring the stark contrast and making a convincing case that he is clearly the candidate most sympathetic to their position.”

Not all undocumented immigrants are happy, however, with changes that have included historically high levels of deportations of both criminal and non-criminal aliens.

“These deportations create a climate of fear because people feel vulnerable,” says Nestor Rodriquez, an immigration expert at the University of Texas. “ICE agents may have wider discretion, but to many immigrants the results are just not showing up in lower numbers.”

The Obama administration has enacted little-noticed changes such as creating an independent office of detention oversight to address complaints about detainees' care, imprisoning immigration detainees near their families in the United States and providing greater leeway for prosecutors to ignore immigration violations in order to obtain testimony from victims of domestic or sexual abuse.

But four of the highest-profile changes are expected to contribute to Latino political support for Obama in the fall.

Children's status: The Obama administration last week began taking applications to permit the children of undocumented immigrants who arrived before age 16 and are now under age 31 to remain in the country on a renewable two-year basis. The change also permits qualifying children of undocumented immigrants to obtain legal authorization to work.

Worksite raids: The Obama administration imposed more than $18 million in administrative fines on employers in its first three years in office — more than double the $9 million in administrative fines imposed in the 10 years before that. The focus on employers rather than employees led to the arrest of 1,605 employers on criminal charges during the three years ending in 2011. A total of 4,335 workers faced administrative immigration charges during those years — down from almost 13,000 workers arrested in raids during the final three years of the Bush administration.

Deportations: The Obama administration has focused deportation proceedings on undocumented immigrants with criminal records, largely ending day-to-day deportations of longtime residents who merely entered the United States without legal documentation. Enforcement priorities include identification and removal of criminal aliens, repeat immigration violators, recent border crossers and individuals deemed “a threat to public safety or national security.” In the last 10 months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 326,488 undocumented immigrants, including 169,833 with criminal records such as felonies.

Family unity: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has eliminated one of the most frustrating bureaucratic impediments to family unity for undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens who qualify for legal residence in the United States. The agency agreed in January to allow undocumented family members to remain in the United States while their requests for legal residence are processed, ending a requirement that they return to their native countries for as long as 10 years to await processing and re-entry. Undocumented immigrants who are immediate family members of U.S. citizens can now obtain so-called hardship waivers before leaving the United States, enabling them to spend only a few weeks in their native countries before returning to the United States with permanent legal status.